MulteFire is a new Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based radio access technology that can operate independently in an unlicensed spectrum without the licensed frequency band carrier. MulteFire extends the LTE to the unlicensed spectrum, and the physical layer uses a Listening Before Talk (LBT) mechanism similar to the carrier sensing technology in WiFi, so as to compete fairly with the unlicensed frequency band devices for air interface resources.
MulteFire may be used in the 3GPP network architecture in the related art to interface with the 3GPP core network in the related art, and provides the capacity, coverage and data offloading of the unlicensed spectrum for the traditional mobile network operator, so as to improve the service quality of traditional operators by the supplement of the licensed spectrum or hotspot.
At the same time, MulteFire also introduced a new network architecture, providing a unified planning and self-organizing Neutral Host (NH) network, and the service providers, equipment suppliers or users all can participate in network deployment, the network can serve a variety of service providers including Internet service providers, cable TV, mobile network operators, enterprise and public place service providers, and can provide an authentication and a network access to terminals without SIM cards.
At present, the alliance organization that promotes MulteFire has been established and operated, so as to promote the development of MulteFire's global technology specifications, promote the future evolution of MulteFire and to ensure that MulteFire devices and other devices in the unlicensed spectrum (e.g., WiFi) may compete fairly for unlicensed spectrum resources.
Specifically, in the NH network mode of MulteFire (referred to as MF), the MF access point (AP) is connected to the NH core network (CN), and the NH CN is similar to the 3GPP LTE core network and includes an NH Mobility Management Element (MME), an NH Gateway (GW) and an NH Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) server.
In the NH network mode of MulteFire, a Service Provider Identity (PSP-ID) is introduced to support various service providers. The concept of the NH network and the service provider network is independent from each other. There are three new network identities, namely the NH network identity (NHN-ID), the PSP-ID and a unique network identity shared by the global MulteFire NH network. The NHN-ID is an NH network operator identity, similar to the SSID of the WLAN network. The NHN-ID can be freely configured by the NH network or uniformly distributed by the operation and maintenance center. The NH core network allocates a unique Globally Unique Temporary Identity (GUTI) to the user equipment (UE) in the NH network, that is, the GUTI is uniquely allocated in the NHN-ID. Each MME may support multiple NH networks, and the MME of each NH network has a unique MME identity in the NHN-ID, and the MME may be uniquely determined based on the NHN-ID and the MME identity.
The neutral host access indicator (NHAMI), which represents the unique network identity shared by the global Multefire NH network, is an NH mode MF network-dedicated public land mobile network identity (PLMN-ID) reserved from the PLMN-ID used by the 3GPP, but the NHAMI has no actual meaning but only to be compatible with the related technologies and replace the PLMN-ID field in the S1 message or the NAS message in the signaling process in the related art with NHAMI. The PSP-ID is the service provider identity, and the network determines the AAA server of the UE through the PSP-ID.
In the LTE technology in the related art, the network operator and the service provider are the same, that is, the network operator ID of the serving UE is the same as the service provider ID, and they are mobile network operators identified by the PLMN-ID. When the UE moves in the network, the UE may initiate a tracking area update (TAU) process to change the location area where the UE is registered in the CN, or initiate a GUTI-based attach procedure to re-register in the current serving network, and the UE carries the GUTI of the UE in the network to which the UE is registered in the TAU request message or the GUTI-based attach request message. The GUTI includes the PLMN-ID and the MME identity that the UE has registered. After receiving the TAU request message or the attach request message of the UE, the MME may acquire context information of the UE in the registered network according to the GUTI. In the case that the context information of the UE is successfully acquired by the MME, the MME does not need to re-authenticate the UE and register the UE to the network again, or does not need to re-authenticate the UE when processing the attach request message, while the MME needs to re-authenticate the UE in the case that the MME does not successfully acquire the context information of the UE.
However, in the NH network, the PLMN-ID in the GUTI is the NHAMI, and the NHAMI is the globally unique network identity shared by all the NH mode ME networks. That is, in the NH network, the MME that the UE has registered cannot be uniquely determined only based on the GUTI. Therefore, it is impossible to acquire context information of the UE in the registered NH network only based on the GUTI.